Understanding Attibility
- Published on 11 Dec 2012
- Attibility
The people dimension of a business cannot be underestimated in the success or failure of an organisation.
How people are managed will directly impact their productivity and furthermore affect the bottom line of the business. Managers are key to ensuring that their teams operate to the strategic advantage of the business.
Quite simply, managers are responsible for getting things done through other people. Some employees just do things well while others don’t.
A fundamental management principle is that people should be able to do the job they are tasked with and where they aren’t managers are obliged to provide guidance, training and assistance. Training and guidance will not guarantee great performance. People need to have a desire to do the work.
Being able to do the job is referred to as ability and wanting to do it well is referred to as attitude.
When people possess both of these in abundance, we invariably get high performance from them and the need to manage their performance closely is reduced. This is unfortunately the exception rather than the rule.
Increasing our employee’s ability is somewhat mechanical and procedural. We provide them with training, tools, support and so on. Increasing their attitude is a whole lot more complex, frustrating and often time consuming.
I have found that there are two key elements that contribute to performance:
1. The ability to do the job.
2. The attitude towards the work.
The degree to which people possess each of these elements affects their performance and determines how they should be best managed. I refer to the combination of these two components as Attibility.
By identifying where subordinates rate on the Attibility scale we can gain critical insights into how to manage them.
It can be difficult to sum-up people’s Attibility accurately, quickly and simply. Ability is much easier to assess than attitude. This book will help you to assess both of them easily.
As I use the terms ability and attitude liberally throughout this book, it is worth taking a moment to clarify what these terms actually mean.
Ability means the degree to which the person should be able to do the job.
In other words do they have…:
• Applicable education, training, qualifications?
• Common sense and adequate intelligence?
• Relevant experience in the job?
• Tools, equipment and facilities required to perform the job?
• Backup systems, support services and other resources necessary to enable them to do the job well?
Attitude reflects the level of desire or willingness to do well.
This would include:
• Accepting that they are in control of their own actions and subsequent success.
• Taking personal responsibility to do things properly.
• Not making excuses for things going wrong.
• Actively seeking out additional responsibility.
• Enthusiasm for performing tasks regardless of their nature, difficulty or unpleasantness.
• Courage to confront tough situations.
• Willingness to find solutions even when they don’t have the resources or knowledge.
• Passion to succeed.
• Concern for the well-being of the organisation;
• Encouragement of others.
Why it is so important to consider ability and attitude simultaneously?
We often make the same mistake when hiring people as we do when managing them. We assess people on these two elements in isolation and focus primarily on their ability, sometimes ignoring their attitude. The result is that we get a completely distorted anticipation of their performance.
We can see this problem in action, as early as the recruitment phase of business. The problem starts with the job advertisements that are put out. When reading the Classifieds you will see how most adverts invite interested people with certain qualifications or experience to submit their Curriculum Vitae (C.V). Historically, the structure and content of most CV’s reveal what qualifications people have, how long they have worked for certain organisations, what titles they held and sometimes they list a few other interests with little to indicate how well they actually perform.
I have hired many people who were very good on paper but performed badly on the job. This happened because I didn’t consider the blend of their ability and attitude (Attibility). Had I done so I would have made better choices. I have seen Attibility at play in the world of running. In 1989, I decided that I wanted to run my first Comrades Marathon, a gruelling ninety kilometre road race. I had the physical disposition for marathon running and I trained very hard for nine months. I was well prepared physically and by race day I considered myself able to complete the race. I had trained properly, had all the right equipment and the necessary logistical support – essentially my ‘CV’ looked good.
Nothing could have prepared me for the mental anguish I experienced. I quickly learned that my training had equipped me to physically compete but as the going got really tough it was only my attitude and determination that kept me from quitting.
In the subsequent years, I have competed in and complete twelve Comrades. I have seen, many well trained athletes give up when things got tough and many under-trained plodders actually hang in to finish. The key differentiator between these two types of folk was their will to finish.
Some athletes have incredible levels of ability and some have great determination, but unless one possesses both simultaneously, the possibility of attaining greatness is low.
(excerpt from Wheelbarrows Must Be Pushed – Andre Grobler)
